Anne Boleyn's fatal French connection

John Guy and Julia Fox reveal how international diplomacy supercharged the rise of Henry's VIII's second wife and hastened her fall

- John Guy and Julia Fox

On 5 May 1527, the great and the good of England and France descended on Greenwich for 24 hours of jousting, feasting and dancing – all to mark the signing of a diplomatic treaty that would signal a new chapter in the two nations’ long and turbulent relationship.

This wasn’t the first treaty signed during Henry VIII’s reign. Nor was it the last – but it was certainly one of the most momentous. For the Treaty of Westminster, as it would be known, saw the English king ditching his relationship with one European superpower – the Habsburgs, led by Emperor Charles V – and throwing his lot in with the French.

When describing the celebrations at Greenwich, English chroniclers focused on the great lengths to which Henry had gone to impress his French guests. At a newly constructed banqueting house, a majestic triumphal arch led into a candlelit theatre with a spectacular ceiling, lit by candles and mirrors, creating the illusion of the heavens, with stars and planets and signs of the zodiac.

French chroniclers, however, took a different tack. Henry’s choice of dancing partner, they noted, was not the king’s wife, Catherine of Aragon, but “Mistress Boleyn, who was brought up in France with the late queen”.